String from animal origin and process for manufacturing the same



. breaches of continuity happen to be some- Patented June 17,1930

IAROEL VARINOIS, OF PARIS, FRANCE, ASSIGNOR TO SOCIETE ANONYME DES LABORA- TORIESROBERT & CARRIERE, 0F PARIS, FRANCE STEIN G FROM ORIGIN AND PROCESS FOR MANUFACTURING THE SAME No Drawing. Application filed July 5, 1929, Serial No. 376,294, and in- France The object of this invention is to provide a process for manu acturing strings and other flexible ties from material of animal origin.

This process, which is a result of investigations which I have made, aims especially at manufacturing strings intended toreplace, on the one hand, those at present used in surgery under the name of catgut and, on the other hand, those used especially for racket stringing'and as harmonic strings with musical instruments.

Persons skilled in the art are aware that the latter, as hitherto manufactured, are constituted by suitably treated sheep guts. Such strings offer a plurality of deficiencies of which the principal ones are as follows: They lack homogeneousness. In order to make them, sheep guts, or more precisely the small intestine of shee are split lengthwise, an operation which frequently causes breaks so that, since every effort is made to use most advantageously catguts-as well as racket strings and harmonic strin s-are in practice, constituted by pieces 0 guts of very unequal lengths. The finished product offers, therefore, a number of breaks in continuity, and since a catg'ut is generally composed of 5 or 6 thongs twisted together it will be readily realized that every brea of continuity decreases the strength thereof by 1/5th or 1/6th, and often by far more whenever two what proximate to one another.

With small auge catguts obtained by twisting 2 or 3 t ongs together strength may vary by between one product and another.

In the second place, the finished products show unequalities as to gauge; in fact the sheep guts used come from animals differing as to age and size and are themselves of widely -different dimensions. When' such guts are split, the thongs obtained are of very variable width since, on the one hand, the operation is mostly hand-effected, and, on the other hand, the elasticity and strength of guts vary considerably from one sample to another. By twisting such thongs toin industry,

such strings,

thongs so obtained,

May 16, 1929.

gether, strings are obtained-some parts of which are of larger diameter than other parts, due to the fact that several thongs particularly wide or thick are assembled at one point, while other portions are far finer and, therefore, weaker.

In the third place, and on account of reasons resulting from the above recited facts, small pieces of guts simply cannot be used at a l.

Lastly, as concerns surgical utilizations of that is to say of strings more especially known in practice as catguts, sheep guts yield products which are very diflicult, if not qulte impossible, to be rendered thoroughly aseptic. As a matter of fact, sheep guts contain fecal matters which constitute a huge microbian colony since bacteria represent about l/lth of the total volume of such matters; as soon as the animal has been slaughtered many of said bacteria penetrate into the intestinal wall thereby enhancing decomposition of the carrion.

In order to rid the guts of their outer muscular tunic and of their inner mucous tunic, manufacturers leave them to cure for 48 hours in cold water;- obviously this period of timeallows bacteria to develop within tissues and incipient decomposition is what permits the outer and inner tunics to be stripped from their backing; Lastly, all handling's' are effected in water that could hardly'completely remove fecal matters and bacteria unless absolutely prohibitive quantities of washing water were used.

The process which is the. object of my invention consists in making use, for manufacturing surgical catguts, racket strings, harmonic strings, etc., of animal fibers, such as muscle fibers, intestinal fibers, and, especially, tendinous fibers.

As an example, I will hereinafter describe the chief operations involved in performing my process when animal tendons or sinews are used as raw material.

I take said sinews as fresh as possible, rid them of all flesh and fat adhering thereto, next sterilize them and then put them to dry at a low temperature.

fibers of various membranes,

Once the sinews are dry, I laminate or card them in order to promote fiber dissociation, and when said separation has been completed by means of a fiber separator similar to those now in use for separating the fibers, vegetable textiles, very fine fibers are obtained, which ma be, for instance, less than 1/10thof a mi limeter in diameter. Lastly, the fibers so obtained are twisted 10 by the methods used in twine manufacturing so as to achieve strings -of various sizes according to the purpose for which intended.

The above described pzsocess is also applicable to any fibers ides tendons or sinews; it will permit of making strings of regular and even thickness, homogeneous in character, very strong and of a length theoretically unlimited or, at an rate, inde- I ndent from the constituent fi r lengths.-

astly, from the surgical point of view, such strings will be far more aseptic than catguts made of sheep guts.

Havin now partlcularly ascertained and describe the nature of my said invention as well as the manner in which the same is to be erformed, I declare that what I claim is:

laims.

1. A process for manufacturin strings,-

consistin in using fresh anima sinews, ridding t em of all flesh and fat adhering thereto, and successively sterilizing them, drying them at a low temperature, separat- 4 ing the fibers and twisting the fibers ,to thedesired size. I

2. Strings for rackets, musical string instruments and for sur ical purposes, made from fresh animal ten ons or sinews whose fibers are cleaned, sterilize ried ,at low 40 temperature,separated and twisted to the desired size.

- In testimony whereof I aflix m si ature.

MARCEL VA I 01$. 

